What I’m Grateful for NOW
Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite time of the year. No. Question. Some people think that’s kinda weird, since I’m a vegetarian, but it’s not about the food for me.
It’s all about the gratitude.
I love gratitude lists, gratitude journals, TV shows about gratitude, magazine articles, blogs…you get the idea. I even published an eBook earlier this year, “Living from a Grateful Heart: 10 Gratitude Practices for Individuals, Families and Groups,” to share some of my favorite ways to say “thank you.”
This year is no different. I feel blessed and full of gratitude. In the past 12 months I’ve made new friends, blossomed as a member of a spiritual mastermind group, watched my beautiful grandson grow, experienced spiritual growth when I least expected it, started new projects and continued to love and be loved by my family and friends.
To be honest, this year hasn’t all been easy. Like many of you, it’s been a year of ups and downs. I have to admit the “downs” seemed more plentiful at times, especially when I worried about loved ones in the path of hurricanes or wild fires, supported others through unspeakable trauma, felt the all too familiar pain of mass shootings and lived through a particularly intense election cycle.
Through it all, I remembered one truth. Gratitude is the doorway to love. To my mind, no drama, trauma, challenge or chaos can triumph over love. When the world seems dark, I do my best to remember the light of love.
When I sit down at our family Thanksgiving dinner this year, I’ll be grateful for these five truths:
1) No matter what happens in my family, community or the world at large, I know I’m in control of my thoughts and how I choose to react. I can choose love or fear. I choose love.
2) While I often see what’s wrong in the world, I know there’s more light than dark. I see the legions of neighbors helping each other during natural disasters, organized meditation and prayer groups that have been scientifically proven to positively effect mass behavior and the kindness of strangers. I see love at work in the world.
3) I am not my circumstances. I am, like you, the essence of the divine in human form.
4) The more I am grateful, the more I have to be grateful for. I absolutely know that sincere gratitude expands exponentially.
5) I am grateful to know that God, Universe, Source Energy – whatever you want to call it – is at work in my life and in the world calling us all to expand even more into the love we are at our core.
I’ll continue to practice gratitude and marvel in the many gifts that are constantly presented to me, even in the darkest times.
I’m grateful to each of you and wish you a most beautiful Thanksgiving. May the spirit of true gratitude live in our hearts throughout the year.
